


Courtesy Call

by thegreatandpowerfultoaster



Category: Control (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bureaucracy, Bye canon! We'll miss you, Families of Choice, Fluff, Humor, Little slowburn in the back but its not the focus atm!, Multi, Not Canon Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, because in this house we dont believe in consistent tone. Or plot., like i dont have enough middle schoolers in my life yet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:29:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27144544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegreatandpowerfultoaster/pseuds/thegreatandpowerfultoaster
Summary: Just a week after Dylan Faden's first...violent outburst, Casper Darling happens upon a young girl right outside the Oldest House's front doors, demanding to be let in.
Relationships: Casper Darling & Jesse Faden, Casper Darling & Zachariah Trench, Casper Darling/Zachariah Trench, Dylan Faden & Jesse Faden, Everyone & Everyone, Other Relationship Tags to Be Added
Comments: 11
Kudos: 21





	1. Chapter 1

It isn't often that Darling is early out of the office - actually, it's rare that he goes home at all! It isn't as though there's any benefit - the chair at his desk is very comfortable, mind you -

But he is today, and only because someone had mentioned to him offhandedly that it was going to rain, and he didn't especially trust himself to drive home in the dark, in the rain, glasses or otherwise. 

But maybe it's something else that prompts him to leave - with everything they study, with everything he studies, and with that accident last well - well. 

It has to be something other than coincidence, that he wanders down to the lobby, swinging his keys in one hand and whistling at the hour - no! At the very minute he does. 

It's already started to rain, of course. That bit's just his luck. He considers staying the night for a minute before he sees it, just outside the door. 

A flash of movement.

Curiosity fuels him like nothing else, of course. He opens the glass door, and steps out a couple of feet, ignoring the rain pelting him like plastic pellets being shot at him. 

She's huddled right up against the wall, which he supposed was meant to keep the rain off of her, but the plains of the Oldest House are unforgiving sleek and flat. Her hair is plastered against her face, and her eyes widen when she has had a moment to register his presence.

She almost seems familiar...but likely that's just how brain telling him to grab on to something, anything to make this a little less implausible.

She's ten, maybe. Small and gangly and dirty except for where the rain has ran down her face. Where the hell are her parents? Does she have parents? None of his questions even begin to explain how she found this Place. None of it tells him what she's seen, or what the Oldest House sees in _her_.

He opens his mouth, and then closes it again. 

Her wide-eyed stare turns into a glare.

"Let me in there," she says by way of any of the usual greetings, balling her fists at her sides. "I have to go in."

Darling considers his options, and then looks at the little girl making demands of him. "Okay," he says. "But you'll have to wait in the lobby until I go and get someone to speak with you, alright?" He doesn't bother to ask if she knows what she's asking for. If she's here, she has at least some idea of what is place is.

Her gaze widens again, like she'd expected him to put up a fight. But she nods, and he opens the door, ready to grab her should she decide to bolt for the elevator. She doesn't, though and he attributes it to the cold, and maybe she doesn't want to be thrown out. 

He doesn't even have to usher her to the chair near the door. She just sits, and he gives her once last long look before he's off to find Trench.


	2. Chapter 2

Trench - Director Trench is still in his office. That wasn't even a question, lately he leaves about as much as Darling himself does, perhaps less, even.

Darling practically jogs up to his office, which in of itself is enough the draw the Director's attention before he's even through the door. Trench is sitting in the mostly-dark, which speaks to an earlier headache. There only things lighting the room are a lamp on his desk, and the warm glow of a cigarette against his face, reflecting off his glasses.

For a moment he's hesitant to step in, and disturb the peace Trench likely desperately needs to remain functional, but then he remembers the urgency with which the girl demanded to be let in.

Being desperate certainly doesn't bring out the best in people, that's all. He's right to be worried, about this. He's right to interrupt.

Besides, he clearly already has Trench's attention.

"There's a girl in the lobby. A child, really. She found her way here, and it was raining, and she wanted to be let in."

None of this gets so much as a raised eyebrow. "I feel it." He says. "It feels like Ordinary. It's Faden."

Oh. 

His mouth opens and closes a few times. "That's why she looked familiar - haven't we been keeping tabs on her, though?"

"I didn't think she'd find us, not really. I thought that when the time came, we'd have to go to her."

When the time came...So he'd already decided that Dylan was a lost cause. Dylan was thirteen - oh! That meant the older Faden was fourteen. She was so small, he had thought...no matter. 

He want to say something, beg Trench to give Dylan another chance after an understandable but if lashing out but the blood flashes through his vision and then the autopsy report comes to mind...

He can't afford to be sentimental about any of this, anymore.

So he just nods. "You'll talk to her, then?"

"Of course. The more preparation she has for the position, the betyer. I think she should start training right away."

The director stands, and takes one last long drag from his cigarette before crushing the tip against the ashtray. Then he comes to sand at Darling's side, and keeps going, and Darling shortens his own stride to match his speed. 

And then, the last thing Trench had said registers, really registers.

"She's fourteen, and you want to start her with on-the-job training?!"

Trench doesn't speak a word until they're well into the elevator ride. "Do you feel that?" He says, before shaking his head. "Being the Director, it's...You wouldn't understand, of course."

There it is. The offputting bit that Trench doesn't really mean, but it slips out anyways. Darling knows he doesn't mean it because it happens often enough - Trench has never been a social man, never bothers to put in the energy to come off as such - besides, they're not doing that again. Not while he's around to stop it. 

Darling frowns at him. "You don't have to patronize me. I'd say I've got a pretty good idea, anyways, being as I've been your friend for the past twenty years."

He doesn't look like he believes Darling really, with the way he shakes his head again, as the elevator dings and the doors roll open.

She's still sitting there, in the chair next to the door. Her hair has dried out some and began to fluff out from her head. One of her legs bounces against the floor.

She looks up, when she sees the pair of them approaching, and stands. 

"I want to see my brother," she says. "His name is Dylan, and I know you have him."

"Alright."

Both the young Faden and himself both look appropriately confused. "Director, do you think that's wise?"

"Yes, _Doctor."_ He's never had his title used as such a pointed jab before. Hmm. "I have other things to tell Miss Faden, as I suspect you do, but I imagine she won't have much of a kind to hear them before she gets to see her brother, does that sound correct?"

Although unlike Trench, Darling has never had children of his own, he was - is Dylan's primary caretaker and has been so for enough time that he thinks he can identify that look with a hundred percent accuracy. She's trying not to cry, as she nods. 

"Please. Please let me see him," she says, and yes. She's tearing up. Darling smiles at her. Trench will let her see her her brother, if only as a step in his grand plan to keep the FBC running smoothly for as long as he can. 

"I have only one condition," Trench tells her solemnly. "After you see him, I'd like you to come up to my office and discuss some things with me."

She nods again, eagerly.

He wishes he could warn her - the work they do here is a important, vital! But he came into it fully aware and prepared. There was nothing keeping him here, if he ever wanted to leave. Same with Trench. Same with Marshall...Miss Faden, though...

They couldn't just let Dylan go. And Trench wouldn't want to let P7 get away now, either.

And so she was stuck here. Tied here.

Fourteen and the rest off her life was decided for her. Dylan was thirteen, and it was the same for him...

Darling had been through long bouts of alternating guilt and illness over Ordinary, over everything after. But this was different. This solidified the whole thing. This made it real, almost three years later.

He had to talk to Trench, after miss Faden was settled. Maybe he couldn't stop this, for either of them - for _any_ of them, but he was going to do the best that he could, from this point forward, to make Dylan and Jesse Faden's lives as comfortable, and as Ordinary as possible. 


	3. Chapter 3

It's very, very hard to describe what it's like to see Dylan again. The director opens the door, somehow, and she wins and runs past observation windows and chairs and down to him. And then her arms are around him and Jesse's crying, and Polaris is there, too, and she's never going to let him go again, until he pushes her away.

He is so small, still. Changed from when she last saw him, for sure, but not so changed that she doesn't recognize him. Where she's small and thin he's obviously been well-fed, even though there's something off about him.

"Dylan," she says. "Dylan, I came!"

Dylan's cold eyes flit from her back to the two men trailing well behind her, and then back to Jesse again, like he can't believe it - and not in the same way she can't believe it. Like its a trick, or a trap. 

Something in her hurts, even with Polaris's reassurance flooding over her. 

And then she looks at the room around her, and she is angry.

Not angry, furious. Jesse is sure she's never been this angry before. This isn't a room, this is - it's a box! A clear box, surrounded by whiteboards and observation windows and desks and - this is a lab, more than anything else, and her brother is the specimen.

She turns around to face the Director and tries to stop shaking. "What are you doing to him?!"

The Director stays calm and collected, and instead the man next to him - the doctor? - who'd let her in answers. He looks sort of grey, and fidgets with his glasses as he speaks _at_ her, but not _to_ her.

"Because of what happened in Ordinary, Dylan is something we'd call a parautilitarian. He's - it's just a precaution, I mean -" He looks over at the Director, clearly pleading for help of some kind.

The Director dishes something out of his pocket - a lighter. "Your brother killed a man, last week. That's why he's in here rather than the private room we set up for him before." 

It seems more directed towards Dylan than her. Jesse doesn't understand any of this. 

But...She's here now. With Dylan. Nothing's taking her away again. It doesn't matter if she doesn't get it right now, there's going to be no more running, no more searching. 

The Director finishes lighting his cigarette, and looks down his nose at her. "I think this would easier if I started at the beginning. Upstairs. Where we can sit down."

"I'm not going anywhere without him."

"No, I don't suppose you are. Come on, Dylan. You know the way to my office."

Dylan clings to her, still looking up like he can't quite believe it. There doctor and the director walk in front of them, and Dylan leans over to whisper to her. "You shouldn't have came."

"What? I couldn't just leave you!"

"You don't know what this place is like! You'll never leave."

"I don't _want_ to leave, if you have to stay."

Besides, this place definitely has her attention. She'd always wondered what it's be like in the only place that knew what happened in Ordinary, the place that covered it up, and it wasn't like she'd seen much of it yet, but everything they'd walked past had been so normal looking but also just so weird.

This place might be bad, but her curiosity is usually stronger than her survival instincts. Besides, she has Polaris.


End file.
